


count the stars of the sky

by Makd



Category: The 100 (TV), The 100 Series - Kass Morgan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arranged Marriage, F/M, Grounder Clarke Griffin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 05:59:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18462914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Makd/pseuds/Makd
Summary: "Our people will be joined. I believe you call it - a marriage."Bellamy didn't count on a Grounder wife being the deal breaker in an alliance to keep his people alive.





	count the stars of the sky

**Author's Note:**

> I just really love grounder!clarke ok

Bellamy's day is going less than spectacularly. Well, his whole week really. Or maybe just the past month. 

Yeah, he'd say crash landing on a radioactive planet with 100 delinquent kids was where his life started heading south. 

If you were to ask about this particular day, though - well. He'd say it started taking a turn for the worse when he'd turned up to this peace treaty unarmed. The other side had not. 

"I thought Anya said no weapons." Octavia hisses by his side, practically vibrating with nervous energy. Anya had also specified parties no larger than three would attend - and yet here she was flanked by at least five guards on each side and no doubt dozens more on the other side of the bridge hidden beyond the treeline. 

"It'll be fine," Bellamy whispered back, "Just let me handle it." He saw Octavia's furtive nod beside him. How, exactly, he would handle it he had no idea. Inwardly, he curses himself for buying into Anya's bullshit peaceful treaty meeting. He'd walked himself and his sister into a death trap. 

" _Belomi kom Skaikru_." Anya's voice rings loud and clear through the silence. "Thank you for this meeting."

"Anya of the...Ground People," Bellamy wills his brain to reconnect to his mouth. Now is not the time for stage fright. "It is our pleasure to be here to discuss a treaty between our people." Anya's lips purse and Bellamy stiffens for second, hands twitching to reach for Octavia and push her behind him. 

"A treaty? I guess you could call it such." The Grounder warrior studies him for a second but Bellamy hardly notices her intruding gaze. Something is wrong. Anya isn't here to talk about a treaty. 

"Forgive me for asking, but if not a treaty what else could you call what we're here for?" 

"Oh we  _will_  be discussing a treaty. But at a later stage. Today is not for that." Bellamy's head is reeling. Anya's not making sense. She's not here for a treaty. But she's not here to kill them either, or they would already be dead. She could also kill them at a later stage, too though so it's hardly reassuring. 

"What do you mean? Why did you come today?" Bellamy can barely get the words out he's breathing so heavily. He can feel Octavia's small hands bunching into the hem of his shirt. 

"Our people will be joined." Anya fixes him with a cool, even stare. He swallows thickly. 

"Joined?" 

"Yes. We must ensure your people will keep their word, and we will make this action to show that we will keep ours. It is our way." 

"So how does this work?" Anya smirks at him, the dark paint on her face shifts suddenly and she no longer looks like she wants to cut his head off. She actually looks amused. It's disturbing. 

" _Tu keryon as won_. I believe you might call it - a marriage." 

Octavia tenses beside him.  _A marriage_. He swallows again, willing his voice not to break. "Okay." 

Octavia jerks in surprise. "Bell, what are you-" He silences her with a glance. If they're going to survive, they have to do it on the Grounder's terms. There's less than 90 of the delinquents left and likely over thousands of the Earthborn - a war would no doubt wipe them out completely.

"What are your terms?" He says to Anya, willing his heart to stop pounding and his hands to stop shaking. He knows what's about to happen. 

Anya seems shocked for a moment, then schools her features into an expression of cool appraisal. "I did not expect such willing compliance,  _Belomi kom Skaikru_." She fixes him with her unnerving gaze once more. "You will take a path of peace, though it would be easier to fight. You are a good leader." There's something about Anya that makes Bellamy feel exposed, like she's seeing something in him that's hidden. She's more intuitive than he thought. 

Anya addresses him once more. "One of your people will be joined with one of mine. You will present your delegate at a counsel of your people and mine in a week's time. As we have initiated this deal, I will present our delegate to you now." Bellamy blinks in surprise. Anya gestures behind her and a young, blond woman steps out from behind a line of huge, hulking grounder bodyguards. 

 _She's short._  That's the first thing Bellamy thinks when he sees her. She is really, he doesn't think she'd even be Octavia's height. But he makes the mistake of catching her gaze and it suddenly feels like he's the one being towered over. Her glare makes Anya's seem cheerful. 

" _Clarke kom Triku,_ of the Wolf Clan." Anya inclines her head to the blond who bows her head in return. Bellamy hopes the scowl on the blond's face isn't an indicator that she doesn't want to do this, or is harboring particularly murderous feelings towards the Arkers. He supposes it could be both. "Clarke is a skilled warrior, one of my finest. She is also trained in healing. She will be invaluable when the winter comes." Bellamy nods at Clarke, whose eyebrow quirks ever so slightly before she returns the gesture. 

Clarke glances to Anya, and mutters something lowly in the grounder language. Anya considers her for a moment before nodding shortly. Bellamy watches the exchange carefully and listens intently, but is none the wiser to the foreign sounds. Suddenly, Clarke steps forward, stalking towards him until there's only about an arms length between them. 

Bellamy's eyes sweep over her face. Up close, he can see that she has a beauty mark above her lip and her eyes are a bright blue that he's never seen on Factory Station before. He can also see the quiver of her lips and the terrifyingly steely set of her jaw.

"Do you know what  _gona kom heda_  is, Bellamy of the Sky People _?_ " Clarke's voice is low and even, her speech is thickly accented when she says his name. Bellamy shakes his head slowly. Clarke smirks. "I served the Commander, the highest honour one of my people can be bestowed. I fought as her second  in the War of the Twelve Clans. I killed a whole scouting group with my bare hands. I cut off the heads of each and every one of the Ice Queen's war counselors as her people surrendered." Her voice drops lower still and the intensity of her stare has Bellamy taking a step back. She advances, until the two of them are chest to chest. Octavia takes a step towards them, but Bellamy reaches out a hand to tell her he's okay. 

"You will match me well, to a respected leader of your people," Clarke's eyes are bright with fire as she almost growls out her words, "Or it will be considered a direct insult to my clan, we will consider the treaty broken and I will kill you myself. Do you understand?" Her chest is heaving against Bellamy's. All Bellamy can do is nod. He's more than a little shaken by her words. Clarke nods curtly, eyes flicking up and down his face before she turns on her heel and stomps back to Anya's side. 

Bellamy's head is left spinning in flashes blue and gold. As soon as Clarke is gone, Octavia steps up to him. She checks him anxiously for injury. "She's fucking  _insane_ , Bell, you can't-" 

"Language, O," Bellamy says absently, eyes following Clarke as she strides back to Anya. The grounder leader looks thoroughly bored of the exchange and merely raises an eyebrow lazily as Clarke resumes the place beside her. Anya turns to Bellamy once more. 

"I will look forward to our meeting next week, Bellamy." Anya's face is once again a smooth unreadable facade as she guides her horse back across the bridge. She glances back, giving him an almost imperceptible nod which he returns dazedly. "And - to the union ahead." 

\-- 

Miller is not fond of the idea. 

"You fucking idiot." Yes, Miller definitely does not approve. "You absolute moron." Bellamy sighs, running a hand over his face. If he is honest, explaining the plan back at camp has been infinitely more exhausting than the actual peace meeting itself. 

As soon as they had arrived back at the camp, Bellamy had been swarmed by the Arkers. Everyone seemed to want to know what had gone down.  _Did they hurt you? What did they look like? Did they really have spears? Are they going to help us? Are they coming to kill us?_   

He'd clambered on top of a work table outside the drop ship as everyone waited with bated breath to hear about the meeting. "Firstly, the most important thing is that they're not coming to kill us - they've agreed to peace." Relieved sighs and whoops of delight broke out amongst the crowd. No matter how loudly they'd pledged to follow Bellamy, no one wanted to die in a war they would never have won. 

Bellamy had stamped on the table to get their attention again. "But! But - it's not for free. We've agreed to a union of sorts." Confused stares this time. Bellamy hadn't wanted to reveal the full nature of the deal just yet. "Details are still being sorted out, but this will require some effort from us. There's another peace meeting next week, and we'll know more about the conditions then." He'd stepped down, letting the kids murmur amongst themselves. They'd kill him if they knew exactly what he'd agreed to - a permanent binding to the Grounders. Not just that - they were essentially sacrificing one of their own to a bloodthirsty, barbaric tribe who had shown nothing short of murderous intentions towards them. 

So here he was now, his tent crammed full with Miller, Finn, Murphy and Raven as he desperately tried to convince them not to murder him on the spot. 

"Let's go through this again," Raven sighed, fingers rubbing against her temples. "You thought it would be a good idea to agree to marry off one of our "respected leaders" to the  _Grounders_." 

"Right." 

"Who have  _killed_  us before." 

"Yes." 

"And who have every advantage in this situation and could literally force us to do  _anything_  they want." 

"Yep." 

"So you expect us to be totally cool with sending one of our people to just," Raven makes a waving motion with her hand, "live the rest of their life in literal hell among a group of murderous savages." 

Bellamy sighs again. He's been doing a lot of that today. 

Sensing Raven's patience slipping along with Bellamy's sanity, Finn jumps in to smooth things over. "We don't know that it'll turn out like that. They know they can benefit if this goes well, they'll probably want this to go as smoothly as possible too." 

"Forgive my pessimism but we can't really rely on  _probably_ , Collins. I don't even think we can rely on the Grounders." Murphy's dry voice cuts through the tent, as what he said sinks in. They can't rely on wishful thinking. They really have no way of knowing if this is even a legitimate attempt at peace or an effort to get their guard down and then slaughter them all. 

Miller groans, running his hands anxiously through his hair. "We've got no treaty, no legitimate ceasefire and a probable hostage situation coming up."

"What were you thinking?" Raven's voice is strangled and desperate. It stings, but Bellamy knows he'd say the same thing in her position. He'd risked everything today and all he'd achieved was making their whole situation more precarious.  

"I was thinking," Bellamy grits out, "that I was standing weaponless on a bridge in the middle of nowhere, with fifteen of the most terrifying Grounder warriors in front of me basically telling me I had to sell off one of our people or sign us all over to be massacred." His voices rises towards the end, and he hopes none of the kids outside heard him say that. He's just - fuck he's just tired of the others acting like he wanted this to happen, like he had a choice and he purposefully chose this one. "They had weapons - becomes obviously you bring weapons to the peace treaty where you specified all parties had to arrive unarmed." Murphy snorts at that - he'd told Bellamy that morning that he'd regret not taking armed backup with him. Bellamy doesn't give him the satisfaction of a reaction. 

"Look, not to sound ungrateful that you stopped a war," Miller sits down on the makeshift mattress next to Bellamy, nudging him gently with his elbow, "But who would you even send? We're a bunch of kids, we have no official rulers or council like the Ark and I don't think you're gonna get many volunteers." 

"Plus," Raven jumps in, "This Clarke chick doesn't seem like she'd appreciate any random person, and I don't think we really have anyone that would satisfy her criteria." Bellamy stays quiet, eyes flitting between each person. They all know what 'respected leader' had meant, but no one seems willing to actually say it. Well, Bellamy's screwed up enough today there's no going back now. He might as well bring it up. 

"It's got to be one of us." 

Raven's eyes immediately flick to Finn, who is studiously inspecting the ground near his left foot. Miller's head drops into his hands and Murphy just laughs. 

"I did  _not_  sign up for some child bride bullshit." Murphy snorts. Raven glares at him, crossed arms tightening. 

"This isn't about what  _we_ want." Her eyes are strikingly hard, and Bellamy cowers a little even though her gaze isn't directed towards him. "This is about saving our people. We can't afford to be selfish right now." 

"Selfish?" Murphy's eyes narrow and he mirrors Raven's crossed arm stance. "I don't see you  _or_ loverboy volunteering." The hard set of Raven's mouth trembles ever so slightly, and her eyes seek Finn once again. He won't meet her gaze. Bellamy can see the hurt flash across her features before she turns away. Silence stretches again, but each one knows what's being said.  _Not me._

Bellamy stands up. He's the one who got them into this mess. He's the one who insisted on the peace treaty, and following the stupid no-weapons rule. He didn't even try and negotiate with Anya. He just stood on that bridge like an idiot. 

Miller looks up at him in panic. "Hey, what -"

"I'll do it." Bellamy hopes they don't comment on the catch in his voice. He hopes they try dissuade him, hopes they tell him he's too important here, that one of the others should do it.

But they don't. He doesn't blame them. 

**Author's Note:**

> not sure how long this will be! sorry, I know there wasn't much clarke in this chapter  
> ty for reading


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